


Viva La Revolucion!

by katsudonnnnnnnnnn



Category: Street Fighter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Drag Queens, Headcanon last names, Inspired by 1984 - George Orwell, M/M, fictional countries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 21:12:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 20,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15980597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsudonnnnnnnnnn/pseuds/katsudonnnnnnnnnn
Summary: In this (sort of) AU, M. Bison is a nefarious, evil dictator who's taken over the country of Naipun and named it for himself as Bisonia. Vega is one of his top spies, who often poses as an exotic dancer named Lady Valencia to seduce information from his marks. Remy, an advocate of removing Bison from power, comes onto his radar after a new camera is installed. Vega is sent in to investigate him. He's never fallen in love with one of his targets before, but that's exactly what happened with Remy. Now Vega must choose between staying loyal to Bison, or taking up arms with Remy and saving Naipun from falling at the bloody hands of Bison!





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've just made a playlist to go with this fanfic!  
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_tjGqratJudimbHdsO_UESFv5x8kJpyq

The spotlight danced around the stage, throwing beams of light at the curtains.  
“Now, turn your attention to the stage and give it up for Spain's sexiest woman alive, Lady Valencia!” said the announcement. The curtains parted to reveal her, in a short can-can style skirt and corset-like bikini top. Her caramel hair was done up in an elaborate bun, with a few strands curling past her chiseled jawline onto her fair shoulders.  
A raunchy sounding jazz ballad played as she danced on the pole and shook her stuff for the guys in the crowd to hoot about. Lady Valencia wound her legs around the pole, hanging upside down with her skirt falling down around her upper body. It wasn't long before she sashayed to a guy in a suit and slowly rubbed her hands on his shoulders, and stuck out her legs until he pulled out his wallet. She took it from him, winking and leaning in closer, breasts jutting out in the vicinity of his face. As the song ended, she swiped a few bills and what the man could have sworn was his driver's license and the USB he had containing evidence of M. Bison coercing a political opponent into no longer opposing him and not telling anyone- but it didn't matter to him, Lady Valencia had sufficiently turned him on to where he didn't care. She shoved the money and things she took into her bra. As she left for the stage she flashed her butt to the crowd then disappeared behind the curtain.  
Unlike most of the other dancers, Lady Valencia didn't stop in the dressing room to take her makeup off or get ready for another show. She instead, left out the back door into an alleyway, where a long stretch limousine waited. She knocked on the window 3 times.  
The window rolled down to reveal the scarred, rather ghastly face of M. Bison himself.  
“Password?”  
“Psycho Power,” said Lady Valencia. Her voice was deep, with a strong Spanish accent.  
The door opened and she got in, sitting next to Bison.  
“What have you gotten this time, Vega?” Bison asked, pouring a glass of wine.  
“Not much, I'm sorry to say.” Vega reached into his bra and took out the money and other things he'd swiped from the man’s wallet. “I did get that tape though, at least, that one copy. And something for you.” He sighed as he removed his bikini top and fake breasts.  
“You should have gone for a hundred,” Bison said, waving the fifty dollar bill in the air.  
“If I'd done something to earn a hundred, I'd have blown my cover!” He laughed, thinking about the reactions fully disrobing would have gotten.  
“I still remember that time you wheedled the location of a whole weapons cache out of somebody,” Bison recalled. He took a sip of his wine. “I was so proud… You should try doing that again.”  
“We got lucky that time. It's not like most people bring all their valuable plans to a strip club,” Vega said.  
“Maybe we should diversify. Bring you into other places. You'll get into rebel territory to get information, and when you get caught, you can use your feminine charm to get off scot-free,” Bison suggested. “You'd be a lot more likely to get information that way than Balrog.”  
“Who knows, I might even convince them to give up more information willingly through my beauty and sexual appeal!” Vega said over a giggle.


	2. 2

It was almost eight o’clock in the town square. Remy looked around. People were rushing around to work, all great audience for his message.  
He climbed up onto the stone border around the fountain and, with an awful screech, turned on his bullhorn.  
“Heed this warning, everybody! M. Bison has portrayed himself as a man of the people, for the people. You've seen the posters everywhere. He says he'll build schools and put an end to corrupt politics if you just give him money and your support,” Remy announced. Most ignored him, as usual, but a few people stopped to listen. “But at what cost?? For every baby you see him kiss, he roughs up an elderly woman who doesn't agree with his draconian policies! He wants to use mind control to make everyone his minions!! He enforces his rules by threatening to send out his armed forces and refuses to do anything about Shadaloo. In fact, I know he has strong ties to them! Ever notice how wherever there's strong anti-Bison sentiment, soon, there's a Shadaloo attack? Spread the word, people! Spread it far and wide! Bison is no merciful, kind leader, he’s a violent despot! Thanks for listening.”  
The small crowd that gathered clapped as he got off the fountain.  
“Down with Bison!” an old man cried as Remy walked by to his bag. He put his bullhorn away and took out a stack of leaflets, depicting Bison with an evil grin and a bloody uniform. They read, “Don't let your country die at the hands of a madman! Expose Bison”.   
Remy ran down the sidewalk and threw a few around the square, then went back to standing in the middle and handing them out.   
Right on time, above the crowd, Remy spied a black hat, bobbing up and down above everyone's heads.   
Remy stuffed the leaflets into a zippered false pouch of his bag and took out some fake leaflets reading “Be good to the planet, convert to solar power today!” with clip art of the sun.   
As the black-hatted man approached, Remy began to preach again. “A light left on for 69 minutes can waste hundreds of dollars and burn through even more precious fossil fuels. We're relying on dead dinosaurs, and we don't have any more of those when we run out! Solar panels are worth the investment, people!”  
F.A.N.G crossed his arms. “Solar panels?” he asked, taking a leaflet. “Yesterday it was saving the Siberian tiger, and before that it was recycling.”  
“What can I say, I love the environment,” Remy said. “And you should too. Can't rule the world if there's no world left to rule.”   
“Maybe Master will see the benefit to converting to solar power and it will turn public opinion further in his favor… we’ll install some solar panels at the base and headquarters ASAP!!” F.A.N.G. thought aloud. “But that's all you were saying? Just about solar power?”  
“That's right,” Remy answered. “Nothing else.”  
“You weren't saying anything bad about Bison, were you?”   
“Of course not! Why would I ever say something bad about such a benevolent, brave leader?!” Remy tried his hardest to not cringe.   
F.A.N.G. eyed him suspiciously. “You didn't say he uses up too much power and doesn't care about the planet?”  
“I didn't even say his breath stinks,” Remy added.   
“Good, because I actually think it smells nice.” F.A.N.G. turned to leave. “Back to work then. I need to go hunt down all those who oppose Bison. There'll be hell to pay for not joining us.”   
“Good luck,” Remy called out as he left. He finished under his breath, “You're going to need it. And for the record, his breath actually does stink.”   
Once positive that the henchman was out of earshot, Remy took his real leaflets back out.  
“Not only did he change the name of our country to Bisonia, in an effort to squash the past, but he’s also trying to squash the future! He wields the destructive force of Shadaloo against us! He has no problem with mind control and thought manipulation! He disguises his own greed and insatiable appetite for control with empty promises! Lives mean nothing to him!! He has no qualms about crushing anyone who dares to stand up to him!” Remy continued to shout his grievances about their dictator as he handed out papers over the course of the next hour. The old man who was there the whole time, joined him and helped pass leaflets out. They soon ran out of leaflets.   
“Not everyone loves Bison, young man,” said the old man, patting Remy on the back. “A population can only be pushed so far before they push back. In time, those people, the ones rolling their eyes, staring at you in disgust or looking around fearfully, will start to think maybe you've got a point about the current state of things. Keep spreading the word.”


	3. 3

F.A.N.G. returned to headquarters that day, environmental leaflet in hand.  
“Mr. Go Green was back again today,” he said, handing Bison the paper. “I think maybe we should get solar panels. You know, so people won't say you don't care about the Earth.”   
Bison crumpled the paper. “Fine, we'll get some damn solar panels in,” he growled. “Happy?”  
F.A.N.G., though not surprised, was a bit intimidated by his minor outburst. “With all due respect, my lord, what's the problem with solar panels?”   
“It's not just that! The environment guy out there captures so much attention from everyone! He may just be talking about the planet but I still don't trust him. He has the face of a revolutionary, wouldn't you agree?” Bison stared at the live camera feed of the capital city’s main thoroughfare, at the huge traffic jam and people walking by. “F.A.N.G., get me the-”  
“Shadaloo??” F.A.N.G. asked, a bit too eagerly if anything. He was already holding the special black phone. “A good bit of violence fixes everything, sir!”   
“...PR team. I was going to say the PR team. We need some more posters and banners put up so that every man, woman and child knows who exactly is running things around here,” said Bison. “I like fighting and violence every bit as much as you do, believe me. But who would we send them after?”  
“Environment guy?” F.A.N.G. guessed.  
“We have no idea who he is and we haven't seen him directly going against us. At this point it would just have the opposite effect.” Bison stared out the window. “We'll just have to observe him until he makes a mistake. Then… wham!” He interlocked his fingers forcefully like a bear trap closing.   
Bison suddenly turned around. “F.A.N.G.! Why are you still here?! Go get the PR team! Now!! I want those banners!” he snapped.   
“Yes, sir!” F.A.N.G. scrambled out of the room as fast as he could.   
Bison continued to watch the camera feed. There were camera feeds from almost all the large, crowded locations throughout the capital city. He loved being able to see everything the citizens did. It was true that his doing this was partially out of fear that people might stand in the way of his journey to absolute control, but it also made him feel incredibly powerful- like a god, even. If he could, he'd control what they did constantly, and what they thought.   
His eyes fell on the new town square feed. He came to a startling realization: The camera was just so positioned to where a tree blocked the area by the fountain.  
This immediately became a new, huge pet peeve of his. Because of where the camera was, and where the tree was, it obscured a sizable chunk of the town square from Bison’s view.   
His whole life, information being withheld from Bison sent him over the edge, and it's only gotten worse with time. He frantically zoomed in and out with the camera in an effort to look behind the tree. He turned it left and right, up and down. The view remained largely unchanged, aside from revealing an extra centimeter or two of sidewalk upon turning the camera left.   
He went crimson with rage, and thumped his fists. He got up, stormed out of the camera room, and shoved the books and papers off of his desk, yelling in anger. He picked the phone that connected him to his league of assistants off the floor. “There's a tree in between the camera and the fountain in the town square!” he hollered. “It blocks my view! Anything could be happening behind that damned tree! Cut it down!”   
“But… but Master? Would- wouldn't it be easier to just move the camera?” the assistant who had answered said.  
Bison growled. “My cameras are my eyes on the citizens. My eyes are part of me. I move for no man, woman, or tree! Cut the tree down! Now!”   
“Okay, sir… we-we'll get on that.” The phone hung up.  
Bison chuckled to himself, staring the tree down on the camera. Its days were numbered now.


	4. 4

Instead of arriving at a busy town square, Remy arrived the next morning to one walled off by fluorescent caution tape and the sound of a chainsaw. There were workers, part of the infrastructure team, there… but they were all around just one tree.   
“What's going on??” he asked, running up to the line with his bag and bullhorn in tow.  
“Master Bison has ordered this tree cut down,” the lead infrastructure worker answered.  
“But why??” Remy demanded. “It wasn't dying. It wasn't hurting anything!”   
The worker smiled slowly. “To better serve the people.”   
That phrase, coupled with a languid smile from one of Bison’s underlings, always firmly planted dread in the pit of Remy’s stomach. It never meant anything good when that reason was given for a change. They installed tons of cameras “to better serve the people”. They put up posters and saturated the scenery and media with propaganda praising Bison “to better serve the people”. A massive military base was built just outside the city (when there was already one further away) which became soon thereafter frequented by Shadaloo “to better serve the people”. Every time Bison or anyone associated with him said this, it had bad news written all over it.   
The last bit of the tree snapped, and gave way. The once tall, mighty maple tree now had more than half of it laying on the ground, only a minuscule stump remaining.  
Remy just couldn't imagine why the tree had been cut down. It puzzled him so much he skipped that day's protesting and kept mulling over why Bison wanted to cut that tree down until he went to bed that night.


	5. 5

The camera now showed an unobstructed view of the town square as the sun came up over it. Bison grinned and chuckled evilly.   
“Now nobody can hide behind that stupid tree anymore,” he murmured. He cackled, panning the camera around and reveling in the full view of the town square. A guy attempted to lean against the tree but fell backwards upon finding out no tree was there anymore. This amused the dictator greatly.   
He pressed the PA button.   
“F.A.N.G.! Vega! Balrog!” Bison screamed into the microphone. “Get up here, in my office! An accomplishment like this must be shared.”   
They all begrudgingly came up to the door of Bison’s camera room. To be accurate, only Balrog and Vega came begrudgingly. F.A.N.G., on the other hand, bounced along happily, a smile plastered on his thin face. If it involved anything Bison wanted, it was therefore the best thing in the world to him. Bison probably could have, as Balrog once joked, called F.A.N.G. in to smell a particularly impressive fart and he still would have been on cloud nine the entire time.  
Vega opened the door. “You called?”  
Bison turned around in his chair. “I can see everything now!” he laughed. “I can see everything. It's beautiful.”   
The three of them crowded around the chair, staring at the big screen in front of them. One view showed the town square.  
“There's no tree there anymore, sir,” Balrog observed. As the military general (answering only to Bison, of course), he didn't really see what happened at many places besides the military bases and Bison’s central command building.   
“They cut it down yesterday,” Vega said.  
“Look!” F.A.N.G. almost shoved Balrog and Vega to the side. “It's the environment guy!”   
A young man with teal hair, red pants and a leather jacket walked into view, carrying a duffel bag.   
“Who's the environment guy?” Vega asked.  
“He's out there every day,” F.A.N.G. said. “I see him constantly. He's always protesting something and yelling about saving the environment. We don't like him at all, but now we get to see what he really does before I approach him!!!” F.A.N.G. danced around gleefully.  
Balrog tapped Vega on the shoulder and furtively mocked the way F.A.N.G. danced around, an over exaggerated giddy expression on his face.   
On the video, the guy looked around, and took a bullhorn out of his bag, and a stack of leaflets. He got up on the fountain and started to rant and rave.  
“What's he saying, what's he saying???” F.A.N.G. begged.  
“The cameras don't have microphones,” Bison said. “Yet. Let's keep watching.”   
The guy started to hand out leaflets, and a few more people joined him.  
“Zoom in! I want to see the leaflets!” F.A.N.G. tried to do it himself but fumbled the joystick.  
“Don't mess with that!” Bison yelled. He zoomed into the view. “It's still too small and too grainy. It looks like a red blotch of some sort… what is that?”  
“Sign,” Balrog pointed out, tapping on the screen. “Someone just came up with a poster board sign.”   
F.A.N.G. slapped the desk area impatiently. “Pan! Pan! Pan!!” he practically squealed.   
Balrog rolled his eyes. He hoped nobody saw him do so.  
Bison panned the camera over. “Our country for… F.A.N.G., get out of the way! Our country for a base,” he read.  
“Must be in reference to the new military base, the Shadaloo outpost,” Vega guessed.  
Soon more people with signs started to show up, all saying similar things.   
“We're no puppets”, “Down with Bison, down with oppression”, “Revolution”, and just a picture of Bison's face behind jail cell bars all waved in the air by the fountain.  
Bison stared at them blankly. “I just knew he was stirring up trouble,” he growled.   
“Woo-hoo!” F.A.N.G. cheered. “Sedition charges! You're getting dragged before the investigation committee! And you are! And you too!”  
“Look at Environment Guy,” Vega said, pointing at the screen.  
The teal haired guy was getting his own sign out, and putting his bullhorn down to hold it up proudly. It had a caricature of M. Bison on it, and red, bold letters above it.  
“Bison brings only tyranny and destruction,” the sign’s audacious text read.   
F.A.N.G. just about couldn't control himself. “Mmmm!!!” he squeaked. “Environment Guy really was up to no good!! You're a genius, Master!”   
Bison crossed his arms and gritted his teeth. “So, we've got a wannabe revolutionary. Stirring the pot, saying things he shouldn't be. Well, let's move in now, why don't we?” Bison turned around. “Balrog, work on getting a tail on the blue haired one. You'll report back to me when you've discovered some good information about where he can be found. Vega, you're to, when we get a location on him, get all the information you can about him. Name, address, birth place, job, blood type… everything that'll help us to apprehend him. And both of you, be quick! If he gains too much traction… let's just get this nipped in the bud before it gets worse for us.”   
“Yes, sir!” Balrog and Vega both said.


	6. 6

Remy walked down a side street a few days later, not aware an investigations committee officer was hiding behind him, carefully taking notes about where he had gone.   
Balrog had gotten his men to start following him that very same day they'd seen him on the camera, and they've been observing him for a few days now- making more signs, continuing to protest everything Bison did, and stirring more trouble up.  
Remy turned a corner and walked into the south half of the shopping district. This was the nightlife section, full of nightclubs, bars, and strip clubs.   
He went into one of the strip clubs, and the officer following him went in too. The club, Aether, wasn't a very big place, but it had lots of tables and at least 4 stages, all being used by strippers. Waitresses, dressed only marginally more than the strippers were, set drinks down on the tables in front of the horny guys sitting at them. Remy took a seat and watched one of the strippers. He seemed to enjoy it, but not so loudly and openly as the men around him did.  
The officer took notes on what Remy did- and, admittedly, watched the show along with him some, too- and then left after him.   
He quickly radioed Balrog, telling him the name of the club he was just at.  
“Well, the day before agents have reported him being there too,” Balrog said. “Let's put Vega there.”


	7. 7

Bison's limousine pulled up behind Aether early the next night. Vega had his costume and necessary things in hand.  
“Now remember, you're mostly going after the environment guy,” Bison explained. “But you should make sure and really flaunt yourself so it doesn't look too suspicious. Maybe dance with another guy for a bit after the environment guy.”  
“Okay, sir,” Vega said, getting out of the car. “I won't disappoint you.”   
He entered the club, and went into the back room to get ready. He put on his fake breasts, then a super low-cut, tight leather bustier and red lacy thong. He put on thigh-high stockings and stilettos, then did his hair up in a bun with flowing pieces of hair left out on the sides and dark, smoky makeup with bright red lipstick and purple eyeshadow.   
He came out onto the stage finally, into the blaring neon lights and spotlights.  
“Now welcome to the stage the super sexy, lovely Lady Valencia!” the announcer said.  
Hands on his hips, he sauntered to the middle of the stage.  
Vega absolutely loved posing as a stripper, to be completely honest. He loved all the attention, and chances to show off his beauty. In fact, he had decided a long time ago that if he ever had to give up his espionage position, he would become a real male stripper.   
But for now, he gyrated his hips and stuck out his tongue, grinding his crotch against the floor, in drag.   
He continued to dance for the whole club for a bit longer, then scanned the crowd for his target. Sure enough, there was Remy, sitting at a table in the back, trying to act like he was too cool to be there.   
Vega stepped down off the stage and to his table. He put his slender, toned leg on the table in front of him.  
“Well, well, you sure made me walk a ways for you, honey,” Vega purred, drawing his fingers up his leg. For most men in his situation, talking would have immediately blown their cover, with their deep voices. But while Vega's voice sounded deep like most guys’ when he was normally talking, he had a very wide vocal range, and could shift it to where he could talk in a convincing female voice.   
Remy, of course, wasn't new to going and seeing strippers. But he never actually got all that excited over any of them. Lady Valencia, however, was different. He thought she was one of the hottest girls he'd ever seen. Just staring at her, right here, up close was nearly enough to give him a huge boner.   
“I.. I wanted to see those legs work when you walked over here,” Remy said. He did feel like maybe he was getting a little tongue tied from her, but he was definitely going to not let that stop him.  
“So, what'll it be, gorgeous?” Vega took his leg off the table, and bent over in front of him, putting his hands on his knees. “Little bit of fondling, lap dance, maybe if you play your cards right I’ll let you put your fingers in my mouth?”   
“All of the above!” Remy said.  
“Damn, someone's ambitious,” Vega said, sitting in Remy’s lap, facing him. He held him around his waist and started to rub his butt up and down Remy’s thighs.   
As Vega danced and touched on Remy, Remy could feel his attraction growing. He was definitely going to come back to see Lady Valencia whenever he could.   
Vega, admittedly, was getting a bit impatient. He'd put his legs and ass just about all over Remy and he hadn't even pulled out his wallet yet. Maybe he wasn't doing well enough? Maybe he should just get to the part with the breasts.  
He squatted down, in front of Remy, leaning between his legs. Looking down, he gently traced the lines of his cleavage with his finger. “You wanted to touch?” he asked.   
Remy reached out for them, tenderly caressing then squeezing them.   
It was a good thing Vega's fake breasts were so incredibly realistic, and also a good thing Vega always wore a tight top over them so that they would look even more real. For Remy, they felt quite normal, anyway. But better somehow.   
At long last, Remy reached into his pocket.  
“Yes… finally!” he thought. But instead of taking out a wallet, he just took out cash from his pocket and stuck it into Vega's thong.  
“I really want to see you again tomorrow,” Remy said. “You're so beautiful.”   
“You definitely will, honey. You definitely will,” Vega said. He finished in his mind, “Until I get you to sing like a canary you'll see me.”  
He sauntered off and chose another guy to dance for, this one being an athletic, twenty-something year old redhead.   
Unlike with Remy, Vega decided not to talk to him too much. Despite this guy being the most attractive guy in here, he'd still rather be dancing for Remy. Which was weird- Vega normally went for gentlemanly guys, but Remy definitely wasn't. He was more rough and aloof. Vega looked over his shoulder at him. Remy was, at that moment, lighting a cigarette. Vega always thought smoking to be an absolutely disgusting habit, so why wasn't that ruining Remy for him?   
The guy didn't seem to care that Lady Valencia wasn't talking much, and that she kept looking at Remy. He was drunk and having a good time.   
It wasn't long before Vega got to leave. Bison waited on him outside.   
“Any luck?” he asked after letting him into the limo.   
“No, he just brought cash,” Vega grumbled. “And he wasn't much of a talker.”  
“Tomorrow will be different. Just try to act more sexy, and don't forget to ask him for more money so you can go through his wallet,” Bison said. He offered Vega some wine.   
“Oh, thank God, some real wine,” Vega said, accepting the glass. “I could tell the stuff they had there was disgusting just by looking at it. The second guy I danced for had ordered some.”   
“That environment guy is a tough one… but we've got to crack him. For the good of my empire. For the good of me!” Bison said.


	8. 8

Remy left that night, driving home on his motorcycle. Normally he didn't care that much about any of the strippers he'd gone to see. Or normal girls he’d tried to hook up with. He was perfectly fine with just being around them long enough to satisfy his sexual energy and then no more. It was different with Lady Valencia. He wasn't going to go so far as to say he was in love with her, because he had only gone to see her once, but he definitely wanted there to be… something there. Whether it meant taking her home for just one night, or for several, he didn't quite know yet.   
Right now though, until the next night, that didn't matter. What mattered now was getting ready for the next day's protesting. He'd decided to organize a big rally outside of the west capital city gates, leading to the new base, and he needed to make lots of signs.  
Upon arriving back at his apartment, he immediately got out poster board and markers, and got to work making signs. The majority of them criticized Bison's hunger for power, and a fair amount of them implied that he wasn't doing anything about the Shadaloo because he was part of it.   
You can lead the country or the Shadaloo, but not both, Bloody Bison doesn't care who he kills, and Whatever happened to Chun-Li? were some of the bold, defiant slogans emblazoned on his signs.   
The last slogan was a reference to the former military general, who had been one of the last remaining members of the previous leader’s cabinet. Chun-Li had conducted the military and law enforcement in a dignified, merciful manner and everyone liked her. Her name had been synonymous with safety… until, as the rumors went, she refused to allow her soldiers to search buildings and things to make sure that all of the public thought favorably of Bison. What was known as a fact to all was that she didn't like the way Bison was willing to sacrifice his citizens’ freedom for his own gains.   
She was replaced with Balrog, who wasn't at all hesitant to do these things in Bison's name. Bison had said she was “relocated”, but nobody had said where she was relocated to, nor had anyone seen or heard from her after her mandatory resignation. The populace was also strongly discouraged from mentioning her name. This curious detail had been something that Remy constantly asked about when he gave speeches in the town square.   
The sun was almost up by the time Remy had decided he'd made enough signs. He had only enough time for a quick nap before he had to get out there. The protesters would be there most of the day, and surely they'd run into trouble with the Enforcement- the special branch of the military, tied to both law enforcement and the investigations committee that dealt with “irreverence”- meaning basically putting Bison down or scorning him in any way. They would show up for anything from complaining about a policy of his or even making a slight comment about his appearance; to big things such as organizing a protest or publicly declaring him to be anything but a good leader. This wasn't going to be the first time Remy's had a run-in with the Enforcement, but the last ones were extremely close calls. Most people weren't as lucky as himself when dealing with the Enforcement.   
He loaded the signs into a saddle bag on his motorcycle and drove to the west gates. A small crowd had gathered, some with signs already.   
Immediately after he'd stopped the motorcycle, he started giving his signs to the people who didn't have any. He got off and picked up his bullhorn in one hand, and “Whatever happened to Chun-Li?” sign in the other.   
An uneasy determination swept over the crowd as they took up their signs and began shouting. They all knew they'd probably get arrested and brought before the investigations committee, and as for Remy, the leader of all these protests, he risked torture or even public execution, so Bison could make an example of him, and intimidate everyone else into shutting up and not defying him. But none of them let themselves get worried about it. Bison was a bad leader, and if nobody rose up against him, he would stay in power and continue to become ever more controlling and aggressive.   
“Down with Bison! Down with oppression! Down with empty promises and forcing the people into silence!” Remy screamed into the bullhorn. “No matter what you do to us, we will never back down! Not even the Shadaloo can remove the human desire for freedom!”   
The protesters wildly cheered and waved their signs.   
A military vehicle slowly drove up from the city. Remy firmly stood his ground. Some of the protesters began to cower and put their signs down.   
“Don't run away yet,” Remy said. “Intimidation is their number one tactic.”  
Instead of the Enforcement piling out, when the vehicle parked behind Remy's motorcycle, someone- a blonde, camo-wearing someone, to be exact, got out.  
Gasps went through the crowd.   
“Is that…?”  
“No way! He's-”  
“But they all said-”  
He approached Remy, and took his sunglasses off. “I heard there was an anti-Bison protest,” he said. “How can I help?”  
Remy was stunned. “Are you-?”  
“Yes. It's me. Guile,” he answered.   
“But they told us that you were dead!” Remy exclaimed.   
Back in the days before Bison, when Chun-Li was the military general, Guile had been second in command in charge of the military. Strategic and smart, he helped Chun-Li strengthen the military to protect the country well. Like Chun-Li, he had also been around when Bison came to power. And also like her, he was very strongly against Bison's way of ruling with an iron fist. But he was far more open about his disliking of Bison than she was. That was why one day, Guile was taken right off the base- the old base, as the new one hadn't been built yet- in front of everyone, by the Enforcement, kicking and screaming the whole way back to that massive, ostentatious building in the heart of the capital city. In a mandatory viewing program for all the citizens aired a day later, Bison explained that Guile had committed egregious acts of irreverence, and that he had been executed as a result. It scared a lot of people into never mentioning Bison unless it was something good to say about him.  
“I fooled them. I didn't really die,” Guile said. “I did come close though. When Zangief- why'd they ever have to make him the Enforcement captain?- ordered the firing squad to fire, I actually squatted and avoided all but two of the bullets. Luckily they didn't hit anything vital. Did hurt like hell though. Anyway, I played dead. Good thing they didn't try to make sure I was dead. They went to dispose of my body, and take me to get buried or whatever off at the base. When the hearse driver was almost there, I finally regained enough of my strength to knock him out and drive the hearse way away from here. I treated my wounds and made a full recovery. Now I actually live in another country, off in the east. I don't know whatever happened to the hearse driver. Maybe he got lost in the woods. But anyway, it involves helping bring down Bison? I'm in.”  
“But what happened to Chun-Li?” a protester asked.   
Guile looked up at the sky. “I can only assume they actually did to her what they tried to do to me,” he said. “Bison doesn't really care about mercy, all he cares about is power and control. That's why we've got to be out here, to show him that the buck stops here. We're all sick and tired of being shoved around and treated like we don't matter. For us! For our children! For our country! For Chun-Li!!”   
The protesters cheered wildly.   
“Bye-bye Bison!” Guile hollered, pumping his fist in the air.  
The crowd began to chant, “Guile! Guile! Guile!” at that point.   
Unfortunately, that was about where the peacefulness of the protest ended. Shortly after that, came the rumble of military vehicles from the other side of the gate. Zangief and a few of his men were driven out to the gate, right in front of the protesters.   
“You really think holding your riot in front of the base is great idea?” He threw his head back and laughed. “You're all idiots, all of you!”   
“You'd be harder pressed to ignore us if we brought our protest directly to you!” Remy spat.   
“Which brings us here. You may have gotten us to notice you, but who's got more firepower?” Zangief asked, gesturing towards all the tanks and other military vehicles inside with his high-powered sniper rifle. “Now, we have two options for what happens next. You can give it up and go back home, or we'll be forced to take action, which will probably result in many of you getting shot. Which will it be?”   
Guile came forwards. “Listen to yourself! You're telling us either shut up or get blown up! You're insisting that you and Bison are a benevolent force, but telling us you'll kill anyone who doesn't do what you want them to sure as hell doesn't sound like what I'd call benevolent,” he said.   
Zangief went red with anger. “You!” he roared, jumping down from the truck. He made a grab for Guile, but he dodged in time. “I thought we executed you! You've somehow escaped your punishment and repayment of your crimes against Bison and your country!”  
A struggle ensued as Zangief tried to reach Guile, who, in turn, tried to stay away. The protesters tried to help Guile out and get in Zangief’s way, but he was too strong and overcame them. He reached Guile and slammed his back into the wall by his neck.   
“Now… now I've got you!” Zangief growled. He put his handgun to Guile's forehead. “Now you'll see what happens when you dishonor Bison! Any last words?”  
Guile's gaze stayed firm. “Yeah, I got some words for you,” he answered. He spat in Zangief's face. “Fuck you, and Bison too.”   
Zangief pulled the trigger. Guile slumped to the ground, and all hell broke loose.   
The protesters began running around in all different directions, screaming. Some of them had started trying to attack Zangief and the other soldiers, as well as the Enforcement who'd just arrived. Naturally, they began trying to apprehend the protesters and randomly firing their guns in return.   
Remy, in the confusion, just barely escaped. He hadn't anticipated his peaceful protest turning into a bloodbath. He could still hear all the chaos continuing from the safety of his apartment a few minutes later. Breathing hard, he took inventory of everything that had happened.   
He started a protest. Then Guile showed up and everyone had thought he was dead. Then the gates open and surprise, Zangief and the Enforcement. Then Guile was actually dead and the entire thing became a violent riot. And this whole thing was his fault, technically, for starting a protest in the first place. So they would definitely be looking for him now, if they weren't already.  
He didn't understand, even now, how everything turned so bad, so fast. Remy hated violence, and the last thing he wanted was to start a bloody, violent revolution- as opposed to the revolution he'd planned, where nobody had to die. Probably not even M. Bison- he had just figured he'd get imprisoned for the rest of his life or something. But he should have known- a leader like Bison, who relied so heavily on control and intimidation, would probably only respond to violence in return well.   
That didn't mean Remy had to like it though. He still wanted to use nonviolent demonstrations whenever possible, but if Bison's people would bust each one up violently… the paradox was enough to give Remy a headache.


	9. 9

Even though Remy was afraid of getting caught for his part in the day’s riot, he still couldn't stay away from Aether and Lady Valencia.   
“At least she hadn't been there,” he thought as he got comfortable in his seat. “She's just about the only good thing left in this town anymore.”   
He patiently waited on her. He didn't even have a desire to look at the other women. Lady Valencia was the only one he wanted to see dance on that pole. She stepped out on the stage and only danced on the pole for a few minutes before she made a beeline for Remy.  
Vega wanted that information and he wasn't leaving without it. Tonight, he was going to do anything and everything he needed to do to find out who this stranger was.   
“Mm, you came back again tonight, I see~” Vega said, with a voice like rose petals.   
“I did,” Remy replied. “Didn't want to wait anymore.”  
Vega chuckled softly as he wrapped himself around Remy's body. “How about tonight… we go into the back?” He traced the outline of Remy's lips with his long, fake nails.   
Remy was taken aback by this request. Him, alone in the VIP room, with Lady Valencia? That thought was dizzying and intoxicating. Yet it was about to be reality.  
“O- okay,” he stammered, face becoming a bit flushed at the thought of the things he wanted to do with her once they got in there.   
“So shy,” she giggled. “I don't think you can resist all this.”   
Lady Valencia got off of Remy's lap and pulled him out of the chair. She took his hand and began to lead him down a hallway, platform shoes clicking on the floor the whole way.   
She opened a door on the right, close to the end of the hallway.   
Remy stared inside at the couch, and Lady Valencia, for a long time.  
“Why are you just standing there?” she asked, caressing Remy's face. “Come on in here and we'll… have some fun together…”  
Remy stepped inside and closed the door.   
Vega had run into an unexpected problem with his plan of dressing in drag and seducing the information he needed out of Remy. Acting sexy like this, and the very notion of seducing men, already began to make him get all hot. It threatened to make him hard and, in turn, blow his cover. He silently begged for himself to not get a boner.   
He sat in Remy's lap and ran his hands up and down his chest.   
Remy giggled a little as Vega unzipped his jacket.   
“Please… just touch and kiss me, Lady Valencia,” he said. “Touch me wherever you want and kiss me hard.”   
“Of course, mi amor.” Vega leaned in further and began to make out with him. He rubbed his fingers over Remy's nipples.   
Kissing Remy was… not really like much he'd felt before. Vega kissed lots of people, of course, but Remy did it so well for such a rough, brooding guy. He kissed with such desire and sweetness it almost got Vega out of breath.   
He suddenly stopped kissing him when he realized Remy wasn't doing anything except kissing him back. That simply wasn't going to do. Vega wanted for Remy to indulge himself in everything about him- everything that wouldn't give away his true identity for that matter.   
“What's wrong?” Remy asked.  
Vega stared him down. “You need to be touching me too,” he said. It would hopefully persuade information from him better.   
“Ohhhh, okay,” Remy laughed, and went back to kissing him. He grabbed Vega's thighs firmly.   
Remy let his hands work their way up to Vega's butt, which he squeezed.   
Vega did the same to Remy, but as he caressed Remy's butt he found a square lump in his back pocket. That had to be his wallet.  
Vega gave Remy's butt a smack to distract from him retrieving his wallet. He kept one hand on Remy, but opened his wallet with the other behind him.   
“You c- you can take anything you want from there,” Remy said, breaking the kiss. “I know you took my wallet out. Take it. Take my money, Lady Valencia.”   
This was too easy for him. Vega took all but a few bills from his wallet, still holding the wallet behind him. He also took his driver's license and a tiny piece of folded up paper. Vega stuck these between the bills and shoved the whole wad of cash into his cleavage.   
Remy raised his eyebrows seductively as he watched Lady Valencia do this.  
Vega knew that if he left now it would raise suspicion. Besides, he wanted to tease Remy a little longer and keep this feeling, the pleasure that came with seducing men, going. He unzipped Remy's pants and quickly yanked them off.  
Remy gasped softly. She was really going to do this?   
Vega stared longingly at the bulge in Remy's boxers. He started to fondle it, delicately at first, but then started grasping at it harder.  
Remy nearly lost control. It wasn't long before Remy was left a drooling, moaning mess, all fuchsia in the face. Vega realized he could feel his heartbeat in his nether regions...not a good sign, in terms of his disguise. He'd forced himself to stop there, and he'd have to get out fast before Remy saw the now prominent bulge in his panties.   
“Why'd you stop?” Remy asked, sitting up. “Ah no, it's not over already, is it?”  
“It is…” Vega said, kinda sadly. “But don't worry. The next time you see me, you'll get a big surprise!” He playfully winked at him over his shoulder.  
Vega started to walk off. Remy stared after him, then got up.  
“Wait,” he said. “Lady Valencia?”  
He turned around. “Yes?”  
Remy kissed Vega passionately, one last time. “I know we just met a day ago and you probably get lots of guys telling you this but… I think I'm in love with you,” he said. “I mean it. And- and I want to go on a date with you. I don't just want to have sex, though that's always nice, I want to really get to know you and discover the facets of your soul.”   
This surprised Vega. He had been expecting to get the information he just got to Bison and Remy would be arrested in the morning and Bison would probably have him executed or whatever. But that look in his sincere, sparkling turquoise eyes… they didn't look like the eyes of a rebellious French guy who just had 30 minutes in the back of Aether with a Spanish drag queen- whom he didn't know was a drag queen- and was overcome by lust, they looked like those of a man truly and completely in love. Who had just found the person he wants to be with forever.  
Vega, in all the time he's been a spy, or an assassin, or even alive, has never been looked at that way before. He's been looked at with carnal desire, contempt, fear, wrath, disappointment, and jealousy, but never pure, unabashed awe and wonder like that.   
Vega's knees went a little weak and his smile went from a seductive smirk to a sheepish grin. “Okay,” he said. “We can go on a date.” As Remy got dressed again, Vega briefly left to swipe a pen and a napkin from the bar. Their napkins were so rough and tough that they were quite easy to write on, and didn't even tear when he wrote his phone number on it. He signed it “Lady Valencia” and kissed the paper, leaving a lipstick print. He came back in and gave Remy the napkin.  
“Call me,” he said, kind of shyly.   
“You're so cute,” Remy giggled.  
Outside of the club, Bison grew very impatient. Why wasn't Vega back yet? He asked his driver to honk the horn.  
The horn, though faint from where he was, startled Vega. “I have to go now,” he said, running towards the back door. “Can't wait to talk to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Evidently, I misnumbered the chapters in the Google Doc I wrote this in. I combined two chapters here, mostly because one was super short like how chapter 6 was, and also because I wanted to get the numbering caught up.


	10. 10

“There you are!” Bison said angrily. “What were you doing?”   
“This,” Vega said, brandishing the money that he had gotten. The piece of paper fell out of the stack.   
Vega's heart sunk when he remembered he got Remy's ID and whatever that was too. Surely now, Bison would arrest Remy and their date wouldn't ever happen. He'd know for sure that the whole thing was just an act, that he'd wasted his love on a “woman” who ended up selling him out. And Vega would never be looked at the way Remy did again.   
Bison picked up the paper and unfolded it.   
“What's this?” He studied the paper carefully. “It's a map of some sort. It's got… okay, there's our control hub, and the beach route, and the base… this is a map of Shadaloo attacks! And there's something circled over here… ‘Getting closer’, it says here. ‘Too close to home’?! Oh, good job, Vega! You've shown us the general area where he lives. What else did you get??” Bison didn't even wait for a second after asking that to pull the wad of cash out of his hand.   
“Here's… a few hundred in cash, and--!” Bison stared Remy's driver's license down excitedly. “So his name is Remy Pascal Lemaigre. You won't be running free for much longer, Lemaigre. Not for long now.” Bison chuckled evilly.  
Vega sunk down in his seat. Normally this was one of his favorite parts of being Bison's undercover spy- when he delivered his information to Bison and he had Zangief and the Enforcement take his mark down- but this time, he got no satisfaction from it.  
“I'm going to get this information to Balrog right away, and-”  
“Wait,” Vega said. “I was thinking… why don't we wait a while? I mean… I was someone new, and if he got arrested right after meeting me, he'd know I played a part in it, right?” He tried to smile convincingly.  
“I guess you're right,” Bison said. “Then we'll wait a few days so he'll never suspect you!”


	11. 11

Early the next morning, Bison ordered his men into his war room.   
Vega was among them, rubbing his eyes and yawning. The whole situation with Remy had happened at 4 in the morning, and he didn't go home until 6. Now, Bison called everyone in here at 8:30 for an emergency meeting.   
Bison, though he probably hadn't even gone to sleep at all, wasn't tired. In fact, he was never tired, near as Vega could recall.   
“Gentlemen- and lady,” Bison said, nodding to Cammy, the head of his PR team, “I have an important announcement. As you all know, there was a revolt just yesterday morning outside the western gates to the new base. It ended up in most of the participants getting wounded or killed. The Western Gate Massacre, the people are calling it!”  
“Well, what else should I have done?” Zangief asked irritably. “After Guile got what I think he deserved, everyone else scattered and started crowding the tanks and tossing garbage and signs around.”  
Cammy rubbed her temples, sighing. This situation had been volatile from the start and Zangief's actions didn't help any. “I'm not saying Guile hadn't escaped justice back then, but really? Public execution? Right in the middle of a crowd of protesters, who were protesting against Chun-Li’s execution and what everyone thought was Guile's execution? It probably would have been best if you'd taken him back here to do it so that everyone wouldn't have gotten rowdy. Now instead of just Guile, at least 50 more people died too!”  
“Exactly,” Bison said. “Now, more people are growing restless. They're saying we're not to be trusted even louder now. Instead of extinguishing that wannabe hero’s revolution, we just added fuel to it!”  
The table went up in jeers at the concept of a revolution, and worry that it might gain too much traction.  
“But!” Bison yelled over them. “There is good news. Vega has just brought me the information of one of the masterminds of this rebellion. Vega?”   
Vega stood up, somberly. Nobody else would want to wait to move in on him here either, and every time he looked down at Remy's driver's license and his map, that energetic, beautiful light in Remy's eyes just the previous night came back to him.   
“I found this.” Vega turned his head away a little as he slid Remy's driver's license and the Shadaloo attacks map onto the table in front of him.   
Bison picked it up.   
“Now we have a name to go with the face,” he announced. “And he went and marked his neighborhood on the map! We've got something to go off of, finally.”   
Applause swept the room, as the others celebrated the fact that the infamous Environment Guy was no longer infallible.   
“Well, congratulations for your successful mission last night!” Balrog said, patting him on the back.  
The mission may have been successful, but it was a hollow victory for Vega. It was obvious nobody else wanted to wait to apprehend him.   
The rest of the meeting was discussing what happened with the West Gate Massacre, and eventually what they'd do with Remy when they caught him. They agreed on torture and execution- both publicly- but argued about how that would be carried out.   
Even though Cammy and Zangief both suggested that it be quick so that the revolution would be quickly ended, Bison, always one to make statements, wanted it to be long and agonizing.   
While Bison described all the cruel, disturbing and just plain disgusting ways he could publicly execute Remy, Vega took that opportunity to silently leave. If only Remy hadn't been a rebel and shouted his way onto Bison's radar. But then again, if he hadn't been a rebel, he probably wouldn't have met him. The situation with Bison's empire and the rebellion might have been volatile but the secret situation with Remy was even more so. Bison had informed everyone that it was Vega's intention to wait on apprehending Remy, but nobody else wanted to wait. Especially not Bison.


	12. 12

It had been two days since that magical night with Lady Valencia. And it had been two days that Remy was too scared to call her. He didn't feel like he had any reason to be afraid, yet he was. She's danced on him and touched and kissed him but he still wasn't sure if she really would want to go on a date. It would have been the first date Remy's been on since the time he took a guy from his calculus class to the movies in high school.  
That was the issue, Remy realized. That date went terribly, and he was afraid this one would too. Perhaps Lady Valencia might already have a boyfriend and be cheating on him with Remy. Maybe she would mock him for being bisexual. Perhaps she had some other secret he couldn't imagine.   
But somehow, Remy knew the only way to know for sure whether it would be a good or bad date, was to call her. So he did.

Right in the middle of another one of Bison's world domination meetings that Vega didn't want to sit through, Vega's phone started ringing.  
“We're in the middle of an important meeting, Vega!” Bison snapped as Vega looked to see who was calling.   
It wasn't a number he knew. His heart skipped a beat when he realized it may be Remy.  
“This might be important too!” Vega protested.  
“What could be more important than protecting ourselves and the future of the great empire of Bisonia?!” Bison asked.  
Vega tried frantically to think of an answer that didn't involve Remy. “It might be the doctor! Right, there was something wrong with my ear. Couldn't hear out of one ear for a while,” he said, leaving the room in a hurry. “Doctor-patient confidentiality!” He slammed the door and answered the phone right before it went to voicemail.   
“Hello?” he answered in his female voice.   
“Lady Valencia? I thought you weren't going to answer at first,” Remy said on the other end. “It's Remy, you took me to the VIP room, and you gave me your number?”  
“I remember you,” Vega purred. “So when should we have our date, dear?”  
“I was thinking a few weeks from now,” Remy said. “There's a really nice restaurant but you have to make reservations first, and-”  
“No!” Vega knew Remy didn't have a few weeks. In fact, he'd be lucky if they honored his wishes to wait at all.  
“You can't do a few weeks from now?” Remy asked.  
“I can't, I mean… I think we should go on our date sooner than that. In fact let's do it as soon as possible, so that… we can start learning more about each other right away!” Vega said.  
“Okay…” Remy looked at his calendar. “I think I'm not doing anything tomorrow. Is that okay?”  
“It's perfect!” Vega said. “Maybe we can go to another place for dinner.”  
“How do you feel about Italian food? Maybe the place on Park View Boulevard? I heard it's good.” Remy asked.  
“It's-”   
Cammy stuck her head out of the meeting room. “Vega, get back in here! We've come to a consensus! We need you to listen to it. You play a pretty big part in it.”   
“Just a minute!” He turned back to the phone. “Yeah, that sounds great. I really have to go now, I'm sorry. I'll see you then,” he said.  
“Okay. I can't wait. I just want you to know, Valencia, that I love you,” Remy cooed.  
“You too. Goodbye.” Vega tried to make up for the extremely hasty goodbye by sounding as happy as he could while saying it. He made a beeline back into the meeting room and took his seat again.  
F.A.N.G. bounced excitedly in his seat. “Plan! Plan! Plan! I wanna hear the final plan! Tell us quick, Master!!” he chanted. Vega now could see what Balrog was always saying about F.A.N.G. acting like a kindergartner who'd just binged on all his Halloween candy about half the time.   
“Everyone sit down and shut up!” Bison got up and started addressing the table. “So, I've decided what's going to happen to Remy. First, we're going to wait a bit before we make our move. I know, I know! I don't want to wait either!! So I was saying… first, we're going to have Cammy drive up in an unmarked car and pretend to get him for questioning. She's going to knock him out and he's going to wake up at the Shadaloo outpost, with F.A.N.G. and Vega standing over him. And then… and then, Vega will draw on his assassin past and cut Remy's legs and arms up, and F.A.N.G. will smear poison all over his wounds! It's going to be agonizing for him. And the best part is, all the citizens will be watching the revolution die with him, live!” Bison laughed evilly, and F.A.N.G. laughed with him.   
Vega's blood turned to ice. Not only were they going to kill Remy in an extremely inhumane way, but they were going to make him do it?? There was no way he could go through with their plan.  
But what could he do? Whatever Bison said, always went.


	13. 13

The restaurant was quiet, and soft classical music played in the background. It would have been hard to get a much more calm setting, but even so, Vega couldn't relax at all. He fidgeted with his jeweled bracelets and hoop earrings, and rubbed his high heeled shoes over the table legs. Every so often he'd look up and check his surroundings, expecting the Enforcement to burst in at any second. It was obvious, before leaving, that everyone was getting antsy and just wanted to torture Remy already. Vega wanted to stop them, but he didn't know how. Knowing Bison, he would probably make F.A.N.G. poison him too, right along with Remy, if he were to stand up for him.   
“Valencia?” Remy asked after a few minutes. Vega flinched at hearing his female name. “Are you okay? You seem a bit...tense.”   
“I'm not tense!” he objected. “I just…”  
“Are you ready to order?” the waitress asked.  
Vega jumped again, yelping in surprise.   
“I'm sorry, ma’am, I didn't mean to surprise you,” said the waitress. “Do you know what you'll be having tonight?”  
“Umm… I… I think I…” Vega had completely neglected to think about what he wanted. He was too busy fretting about the Enforcement.  
“We're going to need a little longer, everything on here looks so good… oh wait, maybe you could bring us a bottle of this nice wine?” Remy said.  
“As you wish, sir, take your time. I'll be back with your wine shortly.” The waitress left.   
“Something's definitely bothering you.” Remy reached across the table, gently rubbing Vega's hand. “It's okay, you can tell me.”  
Vega knew he couldn't tell him. It was a matter of life and death but Remy would never trust him again if he knew what was really happening.  
“It's fine,” Vega said unconvincingly. “I'm calm, I'm fine.”  
“I don't remember you being so jumpy before… are you sure everything's okay?” Remy asked.  
The soft rumble of military vehicles in the distance became apparent to Vega.   
“Hopefully they're going to the base,” he thought. He tried to let himself calm down and enjoy his date with Remy, but each time he tried to let go, the noise got louder and louder until it sounded like the vehicles were right outside.  
“Are you- are you shaking, Valencia???” Remy asked worriedly.  
“Why are they here???” Vega squeaked.  
No sooner had Remy turned around to see what he meant than the doors flew open, giving a full view of Balrog, Zangief, Cammy, F.A.N.G. and a lot of Enforcement soldiers.  
Vega's worst fears had come true- they decided not to wait.  
“Why are those bastards here??” Remy hissed. “This can't mean anything good!!”   
The other patrons cowered in fear as Balrog led the crew down the aisle towards Remy's table.   
Vega shook so violently that his jewelry made clacking noises, and Remy's brows furrowed together, as Balrog stopped at the table.  
“Mr. Remy Lemaigre,” Balrog said, grabbing the back of his chair. “I bet you never thought this day would come. The day that you suffered the wrath of Bison. You thought you could get away. You thought, ‘My oh my, they'll never catch me! I'm going to start a revolution!’ Wrong!!”   
“Why are you doing this?! A government that abuses its people and tries to stomp out all dissent is no government of mine!!” Remy said.   
“That's where you're wrong, little boy,” Balrog snarled, and snapped his fingers. Zangief picked Remy up by his shoulders. “Now it's time for you to learn what happens to those who impede us. You're either with Bison, or you're against him.”  
Zangief's grip was so tight his fingers felt like ten little drills boring into Remy's skin. He looked down and noticed Vega, looking like he'd seen a ghost in every way possible. Balrog put his hand on his shoulder.  
“Don't hurt her, whatever you do!” Remy cried out, thrashing around. “We'll talk later about me, but don't hurt Valencia! She didn't do anything! She never once said a word against Bison! Please, leave her alone!”   
Balrog chuckled. “Just how stupid are you, Remy??” He turned around and ripped down the collar of Vega's dress, revealing, underneath the dress and his fake breasts, Vega's actual bare chest, adorned with a snake tattoo.  
Remy was crestfallen. The problem wasn't that his love had been a man, but that “she” had lied to him about it. If he'd been open about his being a drag queen, that would have been okay.   
“Valencia…Y- You lied to me! Why??”   
“That's not the only lie you fell for,” Balrog said. “Why don't you tell him who you really are, ‘Lady Valencia’??”   
With Balrog squeezing his arm and his dress in tatters, Vega felt like he had no choice.  
“I'm…” He struggled to hold back tears. “My name is Vega Miravet. I am Lord Bison's top spy and stealth assassin.”   
That sentence, those few words, absolutely shattered Remy's heart into pieces.   
“Bison???” he squeaked. “You worked for Bison the whole time??”   
A tear fell down Vega's cheek, his makeup running down in a purplish river. He nodded his head somberly.  
“You… you traitor!! I trusted you! I thought you were the only reasonable one but you were just with him!!” Remy yelled. “I can't believe I actually cared about you!” He continued to rant and rave, crying profusely, about Vega being part of the problem rather than his escape as Zangief escorted him outside and threw him into the car roughly.   
“It's almost over, Vega,” Balrog said, leading him outside.  
“I thought you were going to wait!” Vega cried. “What was this about??”  
“We just couldn't wait any longer!” Balrog eyed Vega suspiciously. “Wait, are you crying??”  
Vega wiped his tears away, even though his makeup had already ran. “No.”  
“If I didn't know better,” Balrog said, “I'd say maybe you actually got too into character and fell in love with him for real! But that's- that's ridiculous, right??!”  
“It's ridiculous,” Vega quietly said.   
They got into the limousine. In the back of the car, Remy struggled against Zangief as Cammy tied Remy's hands and gagged him.   
Vega couldn't help but look forlornly at Remy. When they made eye contact, Vega saw no love in his eyes; he only saw contempt. He was all too familiar with this expression.  
“I don't think it's all that ridiculous, now, is it?” Balrog said. He asked the driver to start the car. About halfway there, Zangief got a phone call. Vega couldn't make out the words, but he sounded angry.  
“Bad news,” he spat once their phone conversation was over. “F.A.N.G. wanted to go to bed and he won't get up to go to the outpost.”   
“Jesus!” Balrog smacked his forehead. “Why doesn't Bison just make him do it anyway?”  
Zangief laughed. “This is F.A.N.G. we're talking about. You know how he idolizes Bison? Well, Bison loves the attention so much he makes exceptions for him he wouldn't make for the rest of us,” he said. “Like reading him a bedtime story exceptions!”   
“Well, of course- did you say he's reading him a bedtime story?!” Balrog was beside himself.   
“I'm not making this up,” Zangief said.   
“What the hell?!” Balrog cried. “Bison isn't supposed to be doing this! He's supposed to just let him act like a crazy little kid and not do anything, not be his crazy little dad!”  
Remy couldn't help but laugh around the fabric. Their plan wasn't so foolproof after all.  
“What are we going to do??” Balrog said.  
“Let's keep him in a holding cell on the base,” Zangief said. “We'll give Bison the key card so in the morning he can let Vega and F.A.N.G. in.”  
Now, in the time when everything seemed darkest, there was something else there, Vega thought. Could it… could it be? Yes, there it was: a plan. Vega could see his plan coming together now. The plan that would keep Remy alive, win his trust back, and maybe teach Bison a lesson. He'd gone too far now.


	14. 14

The central building of Bison's empire wasn't just an office for him, it was also his home. His living there made things much easier for Vega, since he only had one place to look.  
Late at night, Remy had already been assigned a confinement cell to spend all night awaiting his death, and Bison had already gotten the key card to his cell.   
Vega's plan was, of course, to sneak in and let Remy out, and defect to help him overthrow Bison.  
The first- and hardest- part was to find Bison's card. The building was huge, and it could be anywhere.  
Vega, being an active Shadaloo member and Bison's spy, aroused no suspicion being inside at 2:30 in the morning.   
He deduced that the most likely place for the card to be was in the war room. Vega went up the stairs to the door, but found that it was locked.   
Vega looked on his keychain for the war room key but he only had the keys to the front door, a few supply rooms, and the armory at the Shadaloo outpost. No help at all.  
Vega considered picking the lock but then realized all the doors were protected, and if anyone tried to mess with the locks, an absurdly loud alarm would go off and wake Bison up. He didn't want to have to explain to Bison why he was snooping around in the middle of the night.   
Vega tried to think of who had the keys to the war room for sure.   
It was just Bison, Balrog, Zangief, and… the janitor!   
Hugo had the keys to every room in the building, all on a big key ring that was usually on his belt. But perhaps when he left for the night it was in his office?  
Vega didn't think any of the keys he had would work on the janitor’s “office” (which was just a small room with a chair, a desk with a bunch of cubby drawers on it and a big cache of cleaning supplies) but maybe he left the door open, or one of his keys might work in the office door. There were a lot of “mights” and “maybes” about the whole situation but it was all he had to work with.   
He made a beeline down the hall to the office. The door was, remarkably, actually open. He peered inside and saw the keys sitting on a peg on the wall- and also Hugo, still there, sitting in the chair, holding up a porcelain doll and apparently playing with it. He suddenly turned around and made eye contact with a very surprised Vega. He quickly opened up one of the cubbies on the desk and tried to stuff the doll inside but instead managed to knock the cubby over and get doll clothes, hair brushes and plush mini dolls on his desk, still looking at Vega with the same deer in the headlights expression he stared back with. He only turned around sadly to look at the doll accessories he spread on his desk. Hugo and Vega both stared at the mess in disappointment for a while, then Hugo slowly turned his chair around.   
“Keep this our secret?” he said.   
“Yes…” Vega said curiously. “I was here for something else though.”  
“I'm all ears,” Hugo responded.   
“Can you let me in the war room?” Vega asked.   
“Why do you need to go in there?” Hugo said.   
“I left my wallet,” Vega lied. “Please, I need to get it!”  
“No can do.” Hugo shook his head and turned back around. “The rules are, nobody can go in there without Bison. Not even me. He's the only one who gets in there alone.”   
“Can't you just make an exception? I'm sure he's asleep. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?” Vega suggested.  
Hugo rose up out of the chair to his full height.  
He was even taller than F.A.N.G, though not by much. Hugo had a much more substantial body and muscular build, as opposed to F.A.N.G.’s slim, lanky build, so he was infinitely more intimidating.  
“I said NO, Vega.” He stared Vega down. “I can't let you in that room.”   
“Okay,” he said backing away. “Calm down, big guy. Why are you here anyway?”  
“I'm-” Hugo hesitated. “Important work! I’m working! I'm very busy.”   
“Looks to me like you're just playing with dolls,” Vega pointed out as he started to put the accessories back into the cubby drawer. “That's nothing important.”  
That got Hugo’s attention. He turned his head around just as fast as he could without giving himself whiplash.   
“What did you say?!” Hugo already looked like he was frowning all the time; he now looked pretty mad.   
“I didn't say anything at all, Hugo,” Vega said, hands up. “Don't do anything drastic. No need. We're all friends here, no? We both work for Bison.”  
The resentment stayed in Hugo’s eyes only a moment longer before he went back to cleaning up the mess. “We're friends,” he muttered. “But you're not getting in the war room or Bison's office.”   
Vega crept out of the office, careful not to knock anything else over. He'd already made Hugo mad once and he didn't want him sabotaging his whole rescue mission over a misunderstanding.   
Vega had to get those keys somehow. He knew that Hugo wouldn't let him waltz right back in there and take the keys. He needed a distraction.   
Vega decided to do this by making a mess, and then telling him someone else made it. But what was there? All that was there were some paintings- without glass in the frames- and some potted fake plants. It would take Hugo no time to straighten these things up and catch Vega in the act of stealing his keys. It needed to be something that had to be mopped or swept up, like a spill.  
It was then that Vega had come to a grim realization: There was nothing to spill on the floor. At least, not in the general vicinity.  
He was about to go into the kitchen and spill milk until he realized the perfect solution: If he were to puke on the floor, Hugo would go quickly to clean it up so that it didn't make the hall smell bad. Just enough time for Vega to swipe the keys and leave.   
Vega chose a spot down the hall, by the elevators. He stuck his finger down his throat and kept it there until he gagged and vomited all over the floor by the elevator, even managing to get some on the wall.   
It was a very disgusting solution to his predicament indeed, he thought, but it was a solution nevertheless. He went into the bathroom and washed his hands and mouth off, then began pretending to strut down the hall like nothing happened. When he passed the elevator he pretended to be surprised by the puddle and yelled in disgust.  
The noise attracted Hugo out of his office. He started running down the hall towards the hollering as Vega ran towards Hugo's office. They happened to meet in the middle of the hall.   
“Someone threw up by the elevators! I was walking down the hall, minding my own business when I saw that!” Vega cried out, seemingly beside himself that there would be puke on the floor. “It's so disgusting! I want it out of my sight!! Now!”   
Hugo sighed and stared at the ceiling. “When will people learn to go right across the hall where there's a perfectly good trash can!”   
He turned around and went back to his office to get the mop bucket.  
Vega started walking down the hall towards Hugo's office, and nodded to him as he passed him. Vega walked past the office a bit just for good measure, then sprinted back in. Sure enough, the keys were hanging on the peg. He swiped them and ran up the stairs, which were luckily at the other end of the building from the elevators.   
With the keys in hand, the mission was back on. The first place Vega decided to look was the war room. He was relieved to find that Hugo had labeled all the keys with what each one opened. He inserted the one labeled “War Room” into the lock and unlocked the door.   
Vega hadn't noticed how big the war room was until it was empty. The table in the middle was huge, but there was lots of space around it.   
Unfortunately that and a big map on the wall were the only things in there. He checked behind the map and under the table, but to no avail.   
Vega looked thoroughly in Bison's office, the monitor room, the records hall and even F.A.N.G.’s office without finding anything.  
Vega realized it must have been in Bison's living quarters. He opened the ostentatious doors in the east wing of the building and started searching the rooms.   
Around this time Hugo had finished cleaning up the vomit by the elevator. It looked just like it did before.  
When Hugo returned to his office, he got the nagging feeling that something was different about his office but ignored it and played with his dolls a bit longer. After he put them up he reached up for the keys so he could lock his office up. He found only an empty peg.  
Hugo, quite frankly, panicked. He threw things around looking for his keys but didn't find them anywhere.  
That's when it slowly began to dawn on him… Vega wanting in the war room… the barf in the hall… his keys now being gone… he'd been tricked! He hated being tricked almost as much as he hated being mocked. And one could argue that Vega had mocked his intelligence by deceiving him.   
He picked up a broom, which looked like a pencil in his huge, paw like hands. He gripped it tightly and stomped forwards, angrily growling and muttering in German. “When I see Vega again…” he spoke, “he's dead to me!!”   
In the east wing of the building, Vega contemplated where to look next. The only other room it would make sense to be in was… Bison's bedroom. He really didn't want to have to search in there, yet the knowledge that if he didn't Remy would die spurred him into action. He opened the door and quietly crept in. It was a good thing that he snuck in like that- he saw that Bison was, in fact, in the room, and sleeping.   
Weird. He didn't think Bison even slept. But apparently he did. And he snores, too.  
He looked around the dim room and proceeded to the other nightstand on the opposite side of the bed from Bison.   
Bingo! A folder sat on the nightstand, labeled “Classified”. He opened it up. Inside was Remy’s criminal history file, which chronicled his history with the Enforcement, and on top, a photo of Remy and a small black plastic card emblazoned with the Shadaloo emblem. That was it! He was about to pick it up when he heard a shrill voice from the bed say, “Stop that. You can't have it.” He jumped back to the foot of the bed, inspecting it carefully. Now he saw that Bison wasn't alone. F.A.N.G. was in the bed with him, somehow being spooned by Bison despite the drastic height difference between them. This too, Vega found weird. Neither of them seemed to be looking up.   
“Not my peanut butter, it's all mine,” F.A.N.G. said, waving his hands in front of his face and squirming about a bit in Bison's arms. That didn't rouse either of them.  
Vega breathed a sigh of relief. That was just F.A.N.G. talking in his sleep.   
He took the folder and went to leave, when he heard some very loud footsteps outside.   
He only had to think for a minute before he knew what that noise was. Something told him Hugo just found out his keys were gone.


	15. 15

Vega waited behind the door until the stomping had subsided, then crept out. All he had to do now was put the keys back in Hugo's office and leave. He debated taking the elevator down, but it would make too much noise and probably give Hugo a place to just wait for him. He'd have to take the stairs.  
Near the bottom of the last set of stairs, Hugo's weighty footsteps came thudding past the door. Hugo only paused a moment before he opened the door and looked inside. Vega had, at the last moment before the door opened, dove into the recycling bin. Hugo looked all around and, seeing no trace of him, ran up the stairs.   
Safe at last, Vega jumped out of the bin and opened the door.  
The recycling bin falling over startled Hugo about halfway to the second floor. He ran back down the stairs and saw that the recycling was on the floor, and the door was open.  
“Come back here!!” Hugo roared as he ran out the door. He was now close enough to Vega to where he could hear the keys jingling in his hand as he ran.  
That stomping sound that was getting closer wasn't good. He looked over his shoulder and saw Hugo, broom over his head, yelling and howling in rage.   
Vega threw the keys over his shoulder but it didn't stop Hugo. He ran right past the keys, fury in his eyes. How was he going to get out of this mess?? He ran for the front doors, trying to lose him by taking random turns. He didn't lose Hugo but he did finally make it to the lobby. He pulled on the doors to open them but they were locked. If only he'd kept Hugo's keys! He turned around to see Hugo charging around the corner. Upon seeing that Vega was cornered he bellowed in anger and started charging towards him faster.  
Vega knew then, from the noise he made and the way he ran, what he had to do.   
It was just like a bull fight, with Hugo looking and sounding just like a rampaging bull.   
Vega stood his ground until Hugo was almost to him. At that point, Hugo jumped up to tackle Vega, but Vega had slid to the side on his knees at the last possible second.  
Now airborne, Hugo couldn't change direction and had no choice but to sail into the glass doors.   
The air was split by the sound of Hugo's cry and glass breaking and crashing.  
The glass shattered and the frame bent, knocking one door completely off its hinges.   
A horrible, high-pitched buzzing noise started a split second after Hugo had landed in the glass. The burglar alarm that every door in the building was equipped with now screeched out that a door had been tampered with at absurd volume.   
Hugo groaned in pain as Vega stepped over him.   
“Don't worry, after Bison fires you he'll take you to the hospital,” Vega said over his shoulder, running off towards the parking lot.   
All of Bison's employees had a key to a special black camouflage all-terrain military truck, in case of emergencies. Vega ran to his and got into the driver's seat. This was the first time that he would have ever used his- for a getaway car. He started it up and drove to the Shadaloo outpost where Remy was being held. He flashed his ID card, displaying his status as working for Bison, and drove onto the base. He parked in one of the parking spaces labeled “Reserved for M. Bison”. He hadn't done so on purpose but left it when he realized it could make a good statement against him.   
He strolled inside, trying to look casual as he approached another guard station.  
“Vega! You're here early,” one of them said. “Where's F.A.N.G.?”  
“He decided he's going to let me execute our prisoner myself. Something about a statement.” Vega lied.   
“Okay,” the guard said. “Whatever they want. Boys, go get the camera equipment and we'll start broadcasting on Vega's command.”  
The guards let him into the prison wing of the building. It was surprisingly clean, but the red and black paint on everything made the place look dingy and creepy.  
Vega opened the folder and looked in the file for Remy’s cell number. He found the cell that matched the number and inserted the card into the keypad by the door. It lit up green and the door clicked. Vega opened it.


	16. 16

Remy, who hadn't been able to sleep the whole night he was here, tensed up when he heard the door open. It was the end of the line.  
When Vega came into the cell, Remy looked him in the eyes for a moment, then turned away.  
“Just do it already, you filthy liar,” he said. “You can kill me but you can't kill the natural human desire for freedom. Soon, everyone will get fed up, and it's going to be you, F.A.N.G, Zangief, Bison and Balrog whose bodies are lying bloodied in the street.”   
Vega sat on the bed next to him.   
“I'm not here to kill you,” he whispered. “I'm going to rescue you.”   
Remy glared at him. “Why?” he asked flatly.  
What a blunt response. It caught Vega off guard a little.  
“Why?” he sputtered. “Why wouldn't I? Because I- because I love you, that's why!”  
“No.” Remy turned away, huddled up in the corner where his bed met the wall. “You don't love me.”  
“Of course I do!” Vega tried to pull Remy out of the corner.  
“No, you really don't!” Remy cried, slapping Vega's hand away. “It was an act! You only wanted my information. You only wanted me because I was of interest to Bison! I thought you cared about me but you just wanted to get me right here! You broke my heart, and I'm not going to listen to you any more.”   
“Remy, listen to me!” Vega said. “I gave you my phone number. That had nothing to do with Bison, I did it because I wanted to!”   
Remy said nothing in response.   
Vega's heart sank. “Well, can you at least follow me out so you'll be free?” he asked.  
At the word “free”, Remy turned his head a bit, but then snorted and turned back to the corner.   
“Remy, I'm serious! If we don't get out of here before morning, F.A.N.G. is going to come in here and kill you. And probably me too, because I tried to get you out.” Vega tried again to pull Remy out of the corner. “He's gonna kill us! Are you paying attention??”   
“Then I'll be a martyr!” Remy spat. “Go to hell, Vega. I don't want to see you again.”  
Tears welled up in Vega's eyes. It seemed like everything they were on their way to achieve had been demolished by one stupid little fact. That fact, of course, wasn't so little- that Vega was with Bison and the Shadaloo, and that's what Remy had worked so hard to topple.   
“I'm not leaving here without you!” Vega sobbed. “I knew the minute Bison decided you had to die I couldn't let him kill you. It did start off as just a ruse to get intel but it developed into so much more! I was actually excited when we were going to have our date. But then THEY had to show up and ruin everything! I knew once they made that awful decision there was no talking them out of it. Bison's ordered blood spilled for less than what you've done. I tried to delay it at least, but they weren't having that either. So I went against them. Don't you understand, Remy? I broke into Bison's bedroom to get this key card! I stole the janitor’s keys and he broke the glass doors over it! I even parked in Bison's space outside! And now I'm all set to help a prisoner escape. But you don't believe me and it's tearing me apart!!”   
Remy was silent again. His eyes stung with forming tears. He wanted to trust Vega but how could he be sure this wasn't just another lie? Bison was known for playing mind games, and so were all his underlings.   
“I swear, I'm here to help you! I'm here for you, and I'm never, ever going to leave you again. Bison and the others are just going to have to deal with it, they're dead to me. Don't you understand? I'm on your side now, I promise everything divine!” Vega tried to gauge Remy's response through his tears. “Please, just give me a sign that you still care about me! I know that you don't trust me after those lies but that's over now. I still love you, Remy. And I came here just because I couldn't bear the thought of you dying!”  
“They wanted you to kill me. Not anyone else, you,” Remy said. “Why?”  
Vega sniffled. “Bison's a cruel man. He thought maybe physical agony wouldn't be enough so he wanted someone who got close to him to do it. He… somehow knew you would fall in love with me.”   
“Oh,” was all Remy had to say to that.  
Just one short syllable.   
“I'll do anything at all right now to prove to you that I genuinely love you and I'd never hurt you,” Vega begged. “Anything at all. You name it, I'll do it.”   
“Then have sex with me.”   
Remy hadn't even registered that he'd said it out loud until he saw Vega bending down and taking his pants off.   
“Okay, Remy,” he said. “Then can we get out of here? I don't know when F.A.N.G. and Bison are coming back. He'll kill you, and then me because I'm sure that what we're about to do is definitely fraternizing with the enemy.”   
In the split second after he'd said it, Remy didn't see how that would possibly indicate any trustworthiness, but now, he started to get the same feeling he felt back when he thought of Vega as Lady Valencia. That same wholehearted romantic and sexual love had slowly started to return.   
He smiled as Vega removed his underwear. How could he have ever hidden all that in his panties when he was dressed in drag?? And those hips were absolutely perfect for holding onto while he went down on him.   
Remy wasted no time taking his clothes off too.   
“Isn't someone going to catch us?” he giggled, while Vega took his shirt off.   
“If anyone hears I'll say I was torturing you. If they see us- well, let's solve one problem at a time here, why don't we?” Vega asked. He ran both his hands up Remy's legs. “So how should we do it?”  
“It was your idea,” Remy answered. “Do the hottest thing to me you can think of.”  
“My idea?” Vega laughed. “You were the one who said it. I just acted on it.”  
“You still get to choose though,” Remy said.   
“My choice…?” Vega said. He only took a moment to decide what he wanted to do.   
Vega got onto the bed with Remy and adjusted himself so he was sitting just at the top of Remy's thighs but just below where his balls started.   
Already Remy was starting to get pretty turned on, just from the feeling of their dicks lightly touching.   
Vega licked his hand and grasped Remy's now-hard cock. He rubbed his hand up and down the length of it, sending waves of pleasure throughout Remy's body.   
Remy sharply drew breath when he did this.   
Vega licked his hand again and rubbed Remy's dick some more.  
“Why…” Remy gasped. “I like it but- but why are you licking your hand like that?”  
“Because we don't have lube,” Vega replied, and licked his hand again. “Does it look hot when I do that?”   
“Yes,” Remy said.  
Vega giggled, looking into Remy's eyes while batting his eyelashes. He bent all the way down, his body flat against Remy's, and licked Remy's chest, between his nipples, up to his collarbone.   
Remy bit his lip, trying to not start moaning.   
“Already you're so turned on!” Vega cried out, laughing a little. “Well, I'm going to do a lot more than just this.”  
Vega sat back up and lifted his hips forward. He put his butt right over Remy's cock and guided it into him with his hand. When it went in they both whimpered out of pleasure.  
Remy knew exactly what he had to do, and thrusted his hips upwards into Vega.   
“Yes!!!” Vega almost screamed. “Do it harder and don't hold anything back!”   
It wasn't long before Remy's inhibitions completely broke down and his moans echoed around the cell, mixing in with Vega's slightly quieter- though more frequent- ones.   
In the middle of it, Vega once again bent his body as far over as he could- while Remy still slammed into him- and started biting on his collarbone area.  
Both sensations at once were too much for Remy. He screamed in euphoria as he cummed, still in Vega. Gravity wasn't kind once Vega got off of his dick, and it all dripped out back onto Remy's legs.   
“Now we've got a mess,” Vega said, even though he didn't really care that they made a mess. He hadn't cummed yet but he was determined to. He felt like he was close. He moved himself up Remy's body, straddling his chest.   
“You should finish me off, Remy,” Vega cried out. “I need it so badly right now.”  
Still a bit out of breath, Remy's hands grabbed onto Vega's hips for stabilization.   
He sat up and licked all over Vega's length like a lollipop. Vega shivered and let his legs relax.   
Ready for more, Remy took the whole thing into his mouth and sucked on it as hard as he could.   
Now it was Vega's turn to finish, in Remy's mouth.   
It had been far enough back that it surprised him and he snorted and sputtered.  
Vega pulled his cock out of Remy's mouth. “What happened?” he asked.   
Remy continued coughing a bit longer, but finally got his breath back.   
“They make it look so easy in porn,” he whined. “I never see them choke on it!”   
This made Vega giggle, until he suddenly looked around and noticed that they were still in the cell.   
He sprang up off of Remy just as fast as he could.   
“Oh, shit! We have to get out of here before F.A.N.G. comes in here!” Vega cried as he put his clothes on. “I mean… you are going to go with me now, right?”  
Remy sat up, smiling. “Okay, I can go with you.”  
Once they were both fully dressed, Vega looked around out in the corridor. A guard crossed the hallway at the end. He waited patiently until he was sure the guard was gone.  
“Okay, let's go now,” Vega whispered. They both made a mad dash down the hall, Vega leading them to the armory. He slammed the door behind them.  
“That was definitely hit-or-miss, I was thinking,” Vega laughed. “But here we are. I'd advise you take some things with you, just in case we run into trouble.”


	17. 17

That morning, Bison woke up to a disturbing sound: an alarm going off. He almost bucked F.A.N.G. right out of bed jumping up and changing into his uniform.  
He all but dragged F.A.N.G., who was still in his pajamas, down the stairs to see what happened. He discovered Hugo, lying on the floor in front of the badly mangled front doors, cut up from the glass.   
“What happened here, Hugo???” Bison squatted down next to him. “Tell me who's behind this.”  
“Vega,” Hugo sobbed. “And he's got your card! Ow- I tried to stop him but he got away!” He winced and gave up on trying to stand up.   
Bison was floored. This was Vega's doing?? He broke in and took his key card? No, that couldn't be right. Vega was his top spy, loyal to him and the Shadaloo.  
But sure enough, the folder was missing from his desk, and all the doors were opened around the building.   
How could this have happened? Surely Vega wouldn't do this! But it all made sense now. He'd been acting weird ever since they decided on executing Remy. And now he'd stolen the key card to his cell, presumably for only one reason: to let him out. For some reason Vega had turned against him. His best spy and assassin, now with the enemy!   
“F.A.N.G., go get dressed and start the car. Now! We're going to the base, before anything else can go wrong!” Bison ordered.   
When they arrived, Balrog and Zangief were already waiting there for him. If he concentrated he could hear the sirens going off in the guard towers.  
“What happened?” Bison asked.  
“We were going to ask you the same thing!” Zangief said.  
“Vega broke in and stole the key card, and wrecked the doors!” Bison snapped, running towards the base doors. He tried to open them, but they were locked. “Now you tell me what happened!”   
“Well, now we know how he did it,” Balrog said, glancing over at Zangief. “Remy got out! But he couldn't have gotten far, we just noticed he was gone, after they woke up all the other prisoners!”   
“How did they manage to do that?”   
In response, Zangief inserted his finger into his other hand, which made a tube.   
F.A.N.G. cringed. Bison growled and kicked at the locked doors, which just made another alarm go off because the system thought Bison was trying to break in.  
Balrog rushed over and unlocked the door. “Master Bison, with all due respect, don't break the doors, that's not going to help matters!” He turned his attention to the keypad by the door once they got inside, and put in the code to dismiss the alarm.   
Bison stormed down the hall, staring daggers at his destination.   
The cell door was open, stained bed sheets discarded onto the floor. He picked up the sheets, searching for any clues. The folder was underneath it, but the key card wasn't in there with everything else.   
Now Zangief cringed along with F.A.N.G., since Bison's hand had clearly made contact with the fluid on the sheets.   
Bison, realizing this, wiped his hand on the back of F.A.N.G’s qipao. He wasn't happy about his clothes being used as a cum rag indirectly, but his disgust was overridden by the noise he and Bison heard down the hall.


	18. 18

Bison stormed back out into the hall, to see Vega standing outside the door to the armory, mid-stride. He was frozen, like a deer in the headlights.  
“Hello, s-sir,” he said. “I was… looking for the prisoner.”  
“Don't you ‘sir’ me, Vega!” he growled. “The jig is up! I know what's really going on here!”  
“Vega, what's going on?” Remy whispered.  
“It's under control,” Vega hissed back.  
“You broke in and let Remy out!” Bison said. “It's just like you said… if you're not with the Shadaloo, you're against us. You’re a traitor, and now… it’s obvious you’ll do nothing but get in our way and ruin the perfect Bisonia I created.”  
Vega stood his ground as Bison approached him. With a flick of his wrist, Vega was encapsulated in Bison’s psycho energy. He tried to squirm free but he couldn't move. Bison's Psycho Crusher put immense pressure on every part of Vega's body and seemed to even permeate his skin and crush him from the inside, too. He was in so much pain it felt like it was boring into his brain.  
“This is what happens when you betray your lord Bison! This is what happens to anyone who should dare to oppose me!” Bison roared, laughing at the fear in Vega's eyes.  
Remy looked outside. “That doesn't look very under control to me,” he thought to himself, shouldering a machine gun.  
He kicked open the door, and opened fire at Bison, screaming like a maniac. The gun recoiled hard in his hand, but he didn't drop it. He also made especially certain to not hit Vega.  
The first few bullets just went into the walls or floor, and Bison just laughed at Remy. But finally, one hit him in his buttocks. Startled, Bison fell forward and dissolved the energy sphere. Vega fell out onto the floor and ran around to where Remy was. Vega's body was covered in red pressure marks from where Bison's Psycho Crusher pushed in on him. It still hurt, but not as badly as when it was actually happening.  
A decent amount of the rest of the bullets hit Bison, mostly in his legs and abdomen.  
By the time the magazine had emptied, Bison lay on the floor, bleeding and struggling to sit up.  
“Damn, how'd he survive all that??” Remy asked, lowering his gun.  
“He's not human, remember?” Vega said.  
“Everybody, get over here!” Bison yelled. “Where the hell are they? F.A.N.G.! Balrog! Zangief! Get over here!”  
“We're blocking the only armory on the base,” Remy pointed out, “and I've got a machine gun. They must be getting weapons from the other base.”  
Bison groaned.  
“Why aren't you reloading the gun and shooting him?” Vega asked.  
“Once I realized he wasn't dead, I decided that might actually work for the best, anyway. I did, after all, want for as few people as possible to die on the road to freedom,” Remy said.  
“But why spare Bison?” Vega asked. “If I didn't leave my claw at the… base…” He had left it at the base… specifically, this base. He realized it had to have been around here somewhere! Vega took off, to go look for his metal claw- his weapon of choice.  
“Vega, no!” Remy cried out. “We need to ask him some- damn. Ughhhh.”  
Now, Bison had fully regained his strength, and he stood up. “Do you think you can stand up to me?” Bison laughed at Remy. “You're a fool to think you can stop the power of the Shadaloo. To think you can stop me. I control everything around here. You're as insignificant as a tiny little housefly. Vega might not have been able to kill you… but I certainly can. It's time you learned what happens when you disobey me, your leader.”  
Bison waved his hand once again, eyes and arms glowing violet. Now Remy was encapsulated in Bison's energy sphere. He groaned as the energy pressed in on his brain, like a thousand needles stabbing him all over his body. The Psycho Crusher power was strong enough to immobilize him and prevent him from breathing.  
The only thought in Remy's mind was fear. He knew that he was about to die, and worse, that nobody would be safe from Bloody Bison. He failed his country, and he failed future generations.  
Remy couldn't move his eyes, but he knew that all the footsteps coming up the hall were Zangief, F.A.N.G., and Balrog, back with weapons this time.  
But there was another noise, one he couldn't make out. It sounded like running, but who did it belong to? Cammy? Sagat, the elusive foreign relations chief? Somebody else entirely?  
Only when he heard the wild whoop did he know who it was.  
Vega jumped around the corner, mask on and claw sharpened, ready for battle. In his other hand, he held a pistol, which was a bit different from how he normally fought. He shot at Bison as he jumped onto him. One of the bullets happened hit Balrog in the shoulder with a spray of blood, leaving Vega with one less person to fight off.  
Not knowing whether Balrog was okay or not, F.A.N.G. and Zangief rushed over to Vega to pull him off of Bison.  
But he had already knocked him to the ground, which had disrupted his Psycho energy field long enough to release Remy. He gasped for breath and slowly regained feeling in his legs as he hobbled back into the armory.  
F.A.N.G. released poison from his hands through Vega's clothes while Zangief struggled with holstering his weapon at the same time he tried to subdue Vega.  
The burning from the poison made Vega howl with pain, but he refused to let go of Bison, pushing down hard on his throat.  
“How does it feel now, Bison?? How does it feel now that you're the one in pain?? That's right. I'm going to kill you slowly and painfully, just like you were going to do to Remy,” Vega panted, dragging the tips of his claw down Bison's abdomen lightly.  
Bison tried to manifest his Psycho energy again, but between all the gunshot wounds and being strangled he couldn't keep his mind clear enough to get more than a few bursts of light.  
It was then that Zangief fumbled his gun, and Remy, who had gotten a rifle from the armory, saw his opportunity.  
He came out into the hall, and aimed it at Zangief’s head.  
Upon seeing the gun, Zangief turned around and started running.  
“Scatter!” he yelled to F.A.N.G.  
Zangief ran around the corner, Remy in pursuit.  
While he was distracted by Remy, Vega bucked F.A.N.G. off of him, ignoring the poison burning all up and down his sides, and plunged his claw directly into Bison's chest.  
“Master!!!! No!” F.A.N.G. cried.  
It was too late for F.A.N.G. to do anything. The blades had already pierced Bison's heart. Vega stabbed him a few more times with rage, and finally got up and stared down at his lifeless body. Vega lifted his mask and licked at the blood on his blades, his signature sign of victory.  
F.A.N.G. saw his opening, and went for it. While Vega showed off, F.A.N.G. jumped on him and, poison oozing from his hands again, clawed at his face with his sharp nails, leaving a long, jagged, poison filled mark under his right eye.  
Vega screamed from the stinging pain on his face, and lashed out blindly with his claw. It nearly cut off F.A.N.G.’s right hand, leaving it only partially attached. He screamed in agony, and continued to scratch at Vega's chest with his good hand. Vega then stabbed F.A.N.G. in the neck with his claw. It went all the way through one side of his neck and out the other.  
Now free of his grasp, Vega got up off the floor, still in agonizing pain from the poison stinging all over.  
F.A.N.G. lay gasping on the ground, trying to breathe but slowly losing consciousness from the blood loss. For once, Vega knew better than to lick his blade, for he knew that F.A.N.G.’s blood contained the same toxins he could shoot out of his hands.  
It smelled awful in there, reeking of poison, sweat, and human waste, so he ran to go find Remy. As it happened, Remy was running the other direction up the hall to find Vega. He was covered in blood.  
“Oh my God!” Vega cried out.  
Remy looked at him quizzically. “You think I look bad?? You have a huge cut on your face and chest, and you've got all these chemical burns! I'm fine, you're the one we should be worried about. This isn't even my blood on me, it's Zangief’s. Come on, let's go find the infirmary. Every base has an infirmary.”  
Vega, despite being in pain, led Remy to where the infirmary was. He laid on the first bed while Remy ran to go get antivenin and ointment.  
Remy applied the antivenin and disinfectant to his wounds.  
“We did it, Vega,” he said. “The Shadaloo is no more.”  
Vega smiled. Now, they were safe.  
But once Vega realized that he had a deep cut and chemical burns on his face he gasped and started crying.  
“I know it stings, but you've got to stay still while I disinfect it,” Remy said.  
“No, it's not that!” Vega cried. “My beautiful face is no more!!! Now I'll have burn marks on my body, and a scar on my face!! I'm hideous!”  
“Vega, that's not true! I still think you're beautiful now,” Remy said.  
“But I had a perfect face,” Vega sobbed, “and now it's all damaged and ugly!! Without my beauty… what am I? A failure! A reject! Not me anymore!!” The tears spilling into the cut on his cheek stung.  
“But look- you're still you, though,” Remy tried to reassure him. “You've just got a cut on your face. Think of it like a souvenir from the day you took on Bison and liberated the country from the Shadaloo!”  
“Easy for you to say. You're still beautiful. Now that I'm not anymore, you're the most beautiful man in the world.” Vega sniffed and wiped at his eyes.  
“You really think I'm the most beautiful man in the world?” Remy asked him.  
“Yes,” Vega sobbed. “All I wanted was to be as beautiful as possible. And look what happened. I should have shot F.A.N.G. first instead of Balrog. If I'd done that my face would still be intact and fair.”  
“You can still be beautiful despite having a scar, you know. When I see it, I wouldn't think ‘Oh, he has a scar, he's not perfect,’ I'll think ‘He won the fight against Bison and saved our country. That makes him so much more perfect to me.’ As I said, don't think of it as an imperfection, think of it as a… trophy, or a souvenir of today. And today is certainly something to be remembered.” Remy kissed Vega. His lips tasted mostly like blood, and also had a very slight but sharp sour taste to them as well. That was most likely F.A.N.G.’s poison.  
“There's still poison on your mouth,” Remy said. He poured some antivenin onto a cloth. “Here, blot this on your lips. I'll do the same, since I kissed you. We don't want to take any chances.”  
“It tastes so weird,” Vega laughed.  
“Not as weird as the poison.” Remy suddenly stood up, realizing that they were the only ones who knew Bison was now deceased.  
“What happened?” Vega asked.  
“We've got to tell everyone what happened! Right now, while everyone's just waking up, they still think Bison's alive!” Remy cried out.  
“We’d better figure out how to use the cameras,” said Vega.


	19. 19

That day had started as a normal day- at least, for the citizens. They began to go about their morning routines, when the Shadaloo insignia and the phrase “Important message for all citizens” lit up all the TV screens and electronic billboards. This was one of Bison's mandatory viewing programs, with an announcement, and so everybody gathered around the nearest screen to them.   
But to their surprise, instead of seeing Bison in his office, they saw Vega, bloodied and wearing his mask, standing in the middle of a hall at what could only be presumed to be the new military base, while somebody with long teal hair fiddled with the camera.  
“I think it's on, it's on, it's lit up,” Vega said.  
“Really? It's going out- oh right, there's the ‘live’ button…” Remy ran back to stand by Vega.  
A fair amount of the people recognized Remy right away, as the face of their revolution, but many were seeing him for the first time.   
“Fellow citizens of the nation of Bisonia,” Vega started. “We have a very important announcement. If you aren't already familiar with me, I am Vega, former top-ranking Shadaloo member, and Bison's top spy and assassin.”  
“And I'm Remy,” Remy introduced himself, “the face of the resistance against Bison. Vega was initially asked to kill me for speaking out against Bison, but he decided to join me. We're at the new base, where I was scheduled to be executed. But Vega couldn't find it in him to kill me.”  
“I… well, there's no other way to put this.” Vega laughed a little. “He was so hot I picked him over the Shadaloo. All this is to say… uh, how do I say this…okay . Let's go, Remy. This is going to get gross, everybody else. You may want to look away when we get there.”  
Remy picked up the camera. They went down the hall to where Bison, F.A.N.G. and Balrog lay, dead.   
Everybody watching gasped. Here was their leader, lying in a pool of his own blood, uniform in tatters, and his second in command and military general the same way.  
“As you can see,” Vega said, lifting Bison's hand. “He's very much dead.”   
He dropped Bison's hand and turned back to the camera. “And I did it. F.A.N.G. and Balrog too.”  
This, too, made the viewers gasp.  
“I did it because Remy made me realize just how terribly he treated you, the people. He just wanted you all for his own personal pawns. He wanted to be the ultimate puppet master and control everything about you. And I'd had enough. So I stormed the base, let Remy out, and when these three showed up, we killed them. F.A.N.G. put up a fight, which is why I'm wearing the mask. If I'm going to be on TV, I need to look my best, after all.”   
“That's all to say, you are free now,” said Remy. “Bison's reign of tyranny is over, finally!”  
Many of the citizens, now realizing what this meant, cheered.   
“But we do need a new leader. So Remy and I will temporarily lead the country while we facilitate a democratic election to pick our new leader. That's right. We're going to vote for our next leader!” Vega paused to let that statement sink in. “But before we do, I have changes to make. I'm disbanding the Enforcement, and the Shadaloo is hereby banned from the bases! ‘Irreverence’ is no longer a crime, and I hereby release anybody who's sitting in prison right now for it!”  
Wild cheers went up around the country.   
“And we're getting rid of all of Bison's live feed cameras, too!” Remy added. “We're planning on changing the name of the country, from Bisonia back to its original name: Naipun, what it was named before Bison took power!!”   
Even those who liked Bison cheered for this- nobody had really liked him renaming the country after himself, since it was like he was erasing all the history of the land and what those before him had done.   
“So let's join forces now, and help repair all the damages Bison has done to Naipun,” Vega ended. “We'll come back stronger than ever before!”  
He ended the transmission. People around the country were hugging and crying tears of joy. People were celebrating in the streets, and a great many stormed the new base to give their praises and thanks to Vega and Remy, and trample the dead bodies of Bison and the Shadaloo.  
Remy didn't like that they were doing the last thing, because it reminded him of how he had to get violent on the path to peace despite not wanting to, and here they were celebrating his violence in a violent manner.  
Vega didn't so much care about the symbolism so much as he cared that they would make a mess and everything would dissolve into chaos. Which, sadly, it did. They had to go outside since too many people were coming in to spit on and kick Bison. Vega and Remy eventually had to call in the law enforcement that was left- many members of the past law enforcement had also been loyal to the Shadaloo- to help get everyone from starting a victory riot. It got dangerously close when somebody had taken F.A.N.G.’s arm, but the law enforcement officers eventually made her give it back.   
While the law enforcement busied themselves with cleaning up the base and ensuring all the weapons got put back in their place, Vega and Remy started getting people to run for president.


	20. 20

“Are you ready to go, Vega?” Remy stuck his head in the bedroom door. “The results announcement ceremony and inauguration is starting soon!”  
“Just a minute,” Vega replied, brushing the finishing touches of concealer onto his face. It didn't look exactly like before, but the scar was now only noticeable if you were looking for it.   
“You look lovely, Vega,” Remy cooed. “Like… victory.”  
“I really would have loved to lead Naipun,” Vega thought aloud as he stood up.  
“Well, we get to find out if you do today,” Remy said, leading them to the car. “Someone else might have won the election, though. You weren't the only one who ran for president.”   
The ceremony was held outside of the building that was formerly Bison’s house. It would soon be renovated to look like it did before Bison changed it. Most of the Naipunese population was there, watching, and cameras were set up all around the stage, broadcasting to those who didn’t come- but unlike with Bison’s official “inauguration”, viewing wasn’t mandatory. Nearly everyone, however, wanted to see this. This was truly the beginning of a new era for Naipun. Remy and Vega stood in the middle of the stage, a microphone in Remy's hand.  
“And the winner of our election is…” he said, opening the paper with the results. His heart sank when he saw Vega had only gotten second place. “Ken Masters!”   
Wild cheers went up as Ken came up onto the stage.   
“Thank you, thank you, everyone!” Ken greeted, once Remy gave him the microphone. “I can't believe so many of you actually chose me to lead Naipun into the future. Again, thank you. And let's also thank these gentlemen here, for making it possible to have this election!”  
The audience applauded Vega and Remy.  
“As my thanks, I'd be honored if both of you could serve on my cabinet,” Ken said. “Vega, how about you be Naipun’s new defense chairman? You're strategic, and excellent in battle- but not before you've looked for other ways to solve the problem.”   
“Yes!” Vega said excitedly, shaking Ken’s hand.  
“And Remy, since you want only what’s best for everyone and you’re so good at defusing situations- would you like to be the foreign relations chairman?” Ken asked.  
“I accept,” Remy replied. He also shook Ken’s hand.  
The audience applauded once again.  
Prior to Bison’s rise to power, Naipunese inauguration ceremonies involved having the president-to-be take an oath. But Bison had destroyed most of the documentation that said how an inauguration should proceed, which included the traditional oath. So Ken had to take an oath that Remy had written up.  
He took the oath, promising to lead Naipun as well as he could, and fully respect the liberties of every individual in the country, never sacrificing them for his own devices. A fair amount of the oath was worded to ensure that never again would they have a dictator like Bison.   
“And with these final words, I officially assume presidency of Naipun!” Ken finished.  
The applause from the crowd was deafening.  
“And one more thing- now that all of Bison’s stuff has been cleared out of the presidential mansion… party at my place!” Ken announced. “I don’t think we’ll have enough room for everyone, probably, but we’ll sure try to fit as many of you as possible!”   
Everyone, including Remy and Vega, clapped and cheered.   
Their victory party was very crowded, but it was great. Ken greeted the citizens and shook their hands as they thanked him and asked him what his plans for the future were.   
Close to 11 PM, the doors opened, and many of the people near the door stopped in their tracks.  
Vega nudged Remy, and they both stood up tall and looked around to see who had come in. It was obvious that whoever it was was trying to make their way to Ken.  
When they arrived over there by him, they saw none other than Cammy and Sagat, the last two Shadaloo members, standing there.  
“What’re they doing here??” Remy hissed.  
“I’m guessing they just found out Bison’s not in power anymore,” Vega said.  
They got closer to hear the conversation.  
“What do you mean, not here anymore?” Sagat asked.  
“I mean, Bison, Zangief, F.A.N.G., and Balrog are all dead now, and we banned the Shadaloo from the bases,” Ken explained. “There’s not really anything you can do now.”  
“But Sagat is the rightful foreign relations chief, not Remy!” Cammy cried. “You need to kick Vega out! He obviously doesn’t have Bisonia’s best interests in mind.”  
“Naipun,” Ken corrected her.  
“Bisonia!” Cammy retorted.  
“Whatever the country’s named, I’m the one who has to go talk to the other leaders,” Sagat said. “I was out of the country and just got back when I found out that apparently there was an election!”  
“You know what, Sagat?” Remy finally piped up. “Naipun is now a democracy. You weren’t here to participate or win a spot in Ken’s cabinet. There’s always next year.”  
“And I don’t really see why I should pick either of you for the cabinet,” Ken added.   
“But-” Sagat cried.  
“No, Sagat. Let’s go. They can have their democracy if they want. Soon, Ken will find out that he has no idea how to run a country and he’ll come crawling back to us. But you know what? We won’t help out at all and watch as Bisonia slowly dissolves into anarchy,” Cammy said. They left.  
“Is it true? You don’t know how to run a country?” Vega asked.  
Ken just smirked. “You know the last leader, before Bison? President Gouken? I served a position in his cabinet. I learned quite a bit from him,” he said. “I think Cammy and Sagat shouldn’t go around flapping their jaws about things they don’t know.”   
Remy and Vega both smiled. Though Gouken had been in power a time ago, when they had just become teenagers, they still remembered him fondly. Just about everybody liked him, which made Bison’s seizure of power even harder on the Naipunese people. If Ken was anything like Gouken, it wouldn’t take long before everything was back to normal again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading this! It took me a really long time to write, but I really enjoyed writing this. If you liked it, send it to your friends who also like SF, they might like it too! I also have a Tumblr writing account, twobrokewriters, that I run with my friend. We both post stuff there, so you should check that out for more! Also let me know if I made any typos. I found one but fixed it. I suspect there are more hiding somewhere. I copied this all over from Google Docs without re-reading the entire thing in here first. (I re-read each chapter after I wrote it but still didn't catch the typo apparently.)


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